KARACHI, Nov 11: The Model Customs Collectorate (MCC) collected Rs42.117 billion in revenue during the first four months (July-Oct) of the current fiscal year (2008-09), showing a growth of 34 per cent over the corresponding period last year when collection stood at Rs31.323 billion.
The MCC collected Rs17.128 billion towards customs duty, showing an improvement of 38 per cent over the same period last year when collection stood at Rs12.455 billion.
According to official figures, the customs for the first time had shown duty collected on account of anti-dumping levy which stood at Rs146 million or 64 per cent higher over the corresponding period last year when collection stood at Rs89 million only.Official sources said improvement in revenue collection resulted from a number of measures taken by the authorities to plug leakages, mis-declaration as well as under-invoicing.
The MCC blocked 1,272 forged user IDs which were widely used to get imported goods cleared.
In many cases, these IDs carry wrong postal address and also with fake National Tax Number (NTN) and CNIC.
The customs authorities are unable to trace many of such importers who had been using fake and forged user IDs to clear their imported goods through automation system.
As a result of this, the authorities are also facing problem in pursuing cases in the court of law as all information in such fake IDs are wrong and importers are not traceable, sources said.
During the period under review, the MCC collected Rs18.644 billion towards sales tax which was higher by 33 per cent over the corresponding period last year when ST collection stood at Rs13.99 billion.
Similarly, collection of advance income tax at customs stage stood at Rs3.810 billion or 12 per cent higher over previous year when it stood at Rs3.392 billion.
A substantial amount of Rs1.763 billion was collected towards regulatory duty as against Rs971 million collected in the same period last year.
During the out-going month of October 2008, revenue collection stood at Rs10.738 billion or 30 per cent higher than Rs8.256 billion collected in the same month last year.
Customs sources said that around 3500 more notices have been issued to suspected fake and forged user IDs whereas a large number are put under monitoring to verify their information.
Sources said that by blocking 1272 IDs, revenue collection improved considerably and authorities are striving hard to weed out all such user IDs which had been a cause of revenue leakages at large scale.
Furthermore, measures taken for physical examination by activating intelligence cell with power to stop or examine any consignment has also helped defeat the growing mis-declaration and under-invoicing tendencies.
These sources said after allowing physical examination, detection of contravention cases increased many-fold and import consignments up to 60 per cent are now being examined. The system has been put on check and balance and in case if customs official reject examination, the same could be done by intelligence, sources said.